If you’ve ever learned about the cause of the different seasons on Earth, you probably know that the Earth’s axis isn’t straight up and down relative to its orbital path around the sun. Instead, the Earth’s axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees compared to its orbit, meaning that different latitudes get different amounts of direct sunlight at different times of the year. Because of this axial tilt and how it affects the angle of the sun’s rays hitting the Earth’s surface, some people believe that the North and South poles are at such angles that there are never solar eclipses visible there.
But while it is true that eclipses in the polar regions don’t get as many total eclipses as other places, there are a couple of good reasons for that; namely that there’s just less land in polar regions for the path of totality to cross, and polar regions only get sunlight for half the year, meaning fewer opportunities for eclipses. Astronomically speaking, there’s nothing keeping eclipses from happening at the poles. In fact, the last total eclipse seen from the North Pole was on March 20, 2015, and the last one in Antarctica was on November 23, 2003. If you want to see it to believe it, the next total eclipse at the South Pole will be in December 2039, so book your tickets across the Drake Passage now before it’s all sold out.
[Featured image by National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 4.0]
